I have a deep, abiding love for the cyberpunk aesthetic. I've worshipped at the altar of Sterling, Gibson and Stephenson. And unfortunately I'm going to have to hard disagree and express puzzlement with:
No one expected anything from Edgerunners, even fans of the franchise had forgotten it was coming out… but the series was incredible. It might outstrip studio trigger’s earlier Kill La Kill. Aside from a, somehow simultaneously, slow and rushed pilot-episode complete with poor dubbing (outside of ep1 the dub is amazing) the show is an exceptional and damn near flawless story harkening back to not just western Cyberpunk stories, but old-school kickass Cyberpunk Anime like Akira or at points even Cowboy Bebop.
Unless you are just constitutionally incapable of watching any anime…100% watch Cyberpunk: Edgerunners on Netflix… Its a 10/10 masterpiece.
The first episode is much weaker than the rest, but every episode doubles in quality til you hit episode 6 and it might just be one of the 10 best episodes of television ever made.
As a disclaimer, I haven't played Cyberpunk:2077 so I likely missed some minor tie-ins. But Edgerunners was a good series with an amazing aesthetic that profoundly failed to live up to it's promise. Here are the problems:
**** MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW *****
Gratuitous character deaths. Pilar dying in episode 4 was shocking, and let you know we're playing for keeps. By the time Rebecca and David explode into puddles of gore, it's impossible to give a fuck anymore because the entire team died in stupid ways that don't further the plot. Just watching violence for the sake of violence isn't particularly attractive.
Utterly pointless climax. The culmination of the series is just a reheated 'Do it for her' meme. Love interest is abducted. Main character acquires macguffin (okay, giant mecha suit) to rescue love interest, dying in the process. All other main characters die pointlessly, with one possible exception (Maine dying of cyberpsychosis. But also...what's Maine's backstory? Why is he randomly running in the desert? Why should I care that he's dying?).
Complete lack of meaningful character progression. Nobody has a relevant backstory. The closest thing we get is David's mom dying early in the series, which changes virtually nothing because David already had a pile of reasons to hate the corpos. Now he hates them more. Profound. Meanwhile, what do we know about Pilar? Maine? Dorio? Kiwi? Rebecca? All these characters die and it's just impossible to care because they're sad cardboard cutouts without motivations or actual stories.
**** Spoilers done ****
And because I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the good:
Incredible worldbuilding and aesthetics. The combat sequences with the Sandevistan and cybernetics more generally are fun as hell. David and Lucy's song is a major earworm.
We are almost certainly going to get more stories out of the Cyberpunk franchise, sequels, new series, new games (an expansion is already about to release for CP 2077) and between this and other Scifi properties that have come out recently, its very likely we’re going to see a widespread revival in Cyberpunk the genre… And I’m really looking forward to it.
Color me deeply skeptical. Cyberpunk and fantasy are fairly played out and at this point there isn't a whole lot of new ground to tread, just the occasional talented author who can write an excellent interpretation of the old formula. We'll keep seeing the occasional hit or new franchise, but there's not going to be a renaissance of talented authors bravely taking cyberpunk to new places.
By the way, does this site support spoiler text? The old >! !< doesn't seem to work.
I disagree strongly... The entire point of edgerunners is that it comes at you fast and the characterization is done through animation, subtle character moments, implications that you read into it...
Also deaths aren't furthering the plot? The plot is they're punks trying to get rich and not die, and the tragedy is they know they probably will. You might as well complain the Deaths in "All's Quiet on the Western Front" not furthering the plot... that's the point, death can hit you at any time, you're not special.
I feel like you expected the story to be "And that's how we decided to do "Big important heroic thing" and advance "the good" and this is the story of our noble sacrifice..." no the point of edgerunners is they're just trying to achieve their personal ambitions, make it out alive, not be crushed by the world around them... and everything escalates because the intense friction and pressure they're under just achieving that.
We get the backstories for David and Lucy because they share them with eachother, the rest we get to gleen so much of their personalities, their values, what little part of life they're holding onto, just from how they behave an interact.
Its incredibly efficient show don't tell and it works remarkably effectively. There's a reason it has 100% and 96% on rotten tomatoes.
Bernd
Fighting algorithmic racism like John Henry
KulakRevolt 1yr ago·Edited 1yr ago
Think I've said this before, but I don't know that "not dying" was realistically on any character's agenda. Rebecca was always going to die in a stupid fight with someone much tougher; her progress in the show was in being killed by the strongest guy in the setting rather than some bouncer she got mad and pulled a gun on.
Maine was always going to go psycho and die destroying everything and everyone he cared about. Kiwi was always going to die in some stupid triple-cross backstabbing she thought she was smart enough to pull off, etc.
The whole story was about dying a little harder and becoming a legend doing it.
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Notes -
I have a deep, abiding love for the cyberpunk aesthetic. I've worshipped at the altar of Sterling, Gibson and Stephenson. And unfortunately I'm going to have to hard disagree and express puzzlement with:
As a disclaimer, I haven't played Cyberpunk:2077 so I likely missed some minor tie-ins. But Edgerunners was a good series with an amazing aesthetic that profoundly failed to live up to it's promise. Here are the problems:
**** MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW *****
Gratuitous character deaths. Pilar dying in episode 4 was shocking, and let you know we're playing for keeps. By the time Rebecca and David explode into puddles of gore, it's impossible to give a fuck anymore because the entire team died in stupid ways that don't further the plot. Just watching violence for the sake of violence isn't particularly attractive.
Utterly pointless climax. The culmination of the series is just a reheated 'Do it for her' meme. Love interest is abducted. Main character acquires
macguffin(okay, giant mecha suit) to rescue love interest, dying in the process. All other main characters die pointlessly, with one possible exception (Maine dying of cyberpsychosis. But also...what's Maine's backstory? Why is he randomly running in the desert? Why should I care that he's dying?).Complete lack of meaningful character progression. Nobody has a relevant backstory. The closest thing we get is David's mom dying early in the series, which changes virtually nothing because David already had a pile of reasons to hate the corpos. Now he hates them more. Profound. Meanwhile, what do we know about Pilar? Maine? Dorio? Kiwi? Rebecca? All these characters die and it's just impossible to care because they're sad cardboard cutouts without motivations or actual stories.
**** Spoilers done ****
And because I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the good:
Incredible worldbuilding and aesthetics. The combat sequences with the Sandevistan and cybernetics more generally are fun as hell. David and Lucy's song is a major earworm.
Color me deeply skeptical. Cyberpunk and fantasy are fairly played out and at this point there isn't a whole lot of new ground to tread, just the occasional talented author who can write an excellent interpretation of the old formula. We'll keep seeing the occasional hit or new franchise, but there's not going to be a renaissance of talented authors bravely taking cyberpunk to new places.
By the way, does this site support spoiler text? The old >! !< doesn't seem to work.
I disagree strongly... The entire point of edgerunners is that it comes at you fast and the characterization is done through animation, subtle character moments, implications that you read into it...
Also deaths aren't furthering the plot? The plot is they're punks trying to get rich and not die, and the tragedy is they know they probably will. You might as well complain the Deaths in "All's Quiet on the Western Front" not furthering the plot... that's the point, death can hit you at any time, you're not special.
I feel like you expected the story to be "And that's how we decided to do "Big important heroic thing" and advance "the good" and this is the story of our noble sacrifice..." no the point of edgerunners is they're just trying to achieve their personal ambitions, make it out alive, not be crushed by the world around them... and everything escalates because the intense friction and pressure they're under just achieving that.
We get the backstories for David and Lucy because they share them with eachother, the rest we get to gleen so much of their personalities, their values, what little part of life they're holding onto, just from how they behave an interact.
Its incredibly efficient show don't tell and it works remarkably effectively. There's a reason it has 100% and 96% on rotten tomatoes.
Think I've said this before, but I don't know that "not dying" was realistically on any character's agenda. Rebecca was always going to die in a stupid fight with someone much tougher; her progress in the show was in being killed by the strongest guy in the setting rather than some bouncer she got mad and pulled a gun on.
Maine was always going to go psycho and die destroying everything and everyone he cared about. Kiwi was always going to die in some stupid triple-cross backstabbing she thought she was smart enough to pull off, etc.
The whole story was about dying a little harder and becoming a legend doing it.
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